Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1030: Dr. Roy Vongtama

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

The Guys interview Dr. Roy Vongtama. His background in the space, how he got into it and what is he currently doing. (2:18) Flourishing vs. languishing mindset and how your thoughts affect the body. (17:27) How you have to be careful about how you ‘word’ things. (23:04) The ‘weird’ power of the placebo effect. (27:20) Do they have any research to show cancer survival rates with changes of attitude? (31:19) Why don’t doctors talk about diet and nutrition? (34:02) Taking ownership of your life in the presence of bad news. (40:43) How the body is not who we are. (47:00) Practices we can do TODAY to improve our mindset. (49:35) What is an EASY way people can practice meditation? (59:29) The concept of tensing and relaxing to DECREASE your mental anxiety. (1:04:30) What is the BIG missing piece of Western Medicine? (1:09:36) Is he starting to see more doctors open to this mindset? (1:12:29) Featured Guest/People Mentioned Roy Vongtama MD (@royvongtamamd) • Instagram Facebook Website Enroll Today — Free Email Course YouTube mdroy.com/mindpump Wim Hof (@iceman_hof) • Instagram Related Links/Products Mentioned May Promotion: MAPS HIIT ½ off!! **Code “HIIT50” at checkout** Healing Before You're Cured: The Evidence-Based Guide to Taking Control of Your Body and Mind - Book by Roy Vongtama Mind Pump 992: Sanjay Rawal Kaiser ACE Study The Weird Power of the Placebo Effect, Explained

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. So Dr. Roy Vantama. Vantama. Great episode. Great guy. Great, great guy.

Very, very nice to you. Handsome. Handsome is hell. Well, he's an actor, but he's also a board certified radiation oncologist. And the thing about him is he talks a lot, so here's a real Western medicine doctor who specializes in some treatment, in treatments of cancer, but he talks a lot about the mental, psychological spiritual side of treating that cancer. In fact, he wrote a book called Healing Before Your Cured, the Evidence-Based Guide to

taking control of your body and mind. It's really refreshing to hear a Western medicine doctor talk about these things, especially in the context of cancer, especially because he, this is what he does. This is what he treats. So it was a really, really good episode. Now, you can find his, him online at mdroy.com, Facebook, the Houses of Health. Instagram is at Roy Vantama MD,

Vantama spelled VLN, G-T-A-M-A. We think you're gonna really enjoy this. You also can get a free email course on his website, royvmd.com, and then on YouTube, he has a YouTube channel. He has a little place. Roy Vantama MD. So we think you're gonna really enjoy this episode.

Before we get into it though, I do wanna remind everybody MAPS hit. This is our most effective in the short term, fat burning program that we offer. It's high intensity interval training. It's half off. It's half off to help you get ready for summer. This is our most effective in the short term fat burning program that we offer. It's high intensity interval training. It's half off. It's half off to help you get ready for summer.

So here's what you do. Go to mapshit.com and use the code hit50, hit50 for the discount. Also when this is airing, it's the end of Mother's Day. Check out our Insta Stories on Instagram. We might have something for you. Our pages on Instagram are Mind Pump Justin, Mind Pump Adam, and Mind Pump Sal. And that's it. So here we are.

Without any further ado, here we are talking to Dr. Roy Vantama. Often times when we have ideas for guests to be on the show, many times we'll look and see what the person's talking about or whatever and I'll decide that I want to get on the phone with them first. Just to see if it's a good fit or whatever and you and I got on the phone and within the first five minutes, I knew you would be a great guest because of your background and then the direction you're going with the types of things that you're talking about, which I think are absolutely fascinating. So if you don't mind just kind of giving a quick background to our audience about, you know, what you studied, what you practiced, and now the direction you're going now.

Sure. So I, well, my medical training is actually really long because my dad is an oncologist, my mom's a doctor, so I grew up going into this clinic when I was young, so I got to see like how people, the thing that really impact me the most actually out of that experience was that my dad's physicist, the guy that plans his treatment, has got lung cancer, and as a kid, I couldn't understand like, how could it be that the guys who are treating the cancer

got cancer and then he died in front of me like over the course of two years. And I was like, Dad, how did that happen? He's like, I, you know, and he's totally Western. Even though he's Buddhist, he's still Western trained. So he's like, it just happens, you know? And then as I was growing up, I did a lot of research, high school college, and then I got in a medical school.

I went to, I went to Penn for undergrad. So I studied psychology and the biological basis of behavior. So it was how psychology affects biology. Oh, interesting. Even that I started that and I was looking at how depression, how does that affect you? How does it come about, is it cultural? What are the cultural components?

But also, one of the research topics we're looking at, how do you think culturally? How does it affect an indipresient, how does it come about physically? Like Latinos, they get a lot of stomach pain. Really? Yeah. Stomach pain. So, if you're stressed out and you're, you know, in Latinos, they found that if you

have a lot of stomach, if you're stressed, you get stomach pain. You don't feel any stress, but you have stomach pain. Interesting. You have depression, you have a lot more stomach pain like that. And Asians, they get a lot of stomach, if you're in stress, you get stomach pain. You don't feel any stress, but you have stomach pain. Interesting. You have depression, you have a lot more stomach pain, like that, and Asians, they get a lot of headaches. So you get, sometimes you'll see, like, I have friends in college, I don't, I don't see where they are,

but they lose their hair. You know, their hair would fall on patches, from stress. And I know, how are you stressed? No, I'm fine. I'm like, your whole head is bald. I didn't even thought, like, culturally, that would be different.

It's culturally, yeah. But then you. I didn't even thought like culturally, that would be different. Culturally, yeah. But then you gotta think, okay, well then that's how the mind is processing the stress, right? So there's cultural components. That's pretty deep stuff. This is fascinating. Did you, are they finding that the, the, that they're learning how to deal with these,

the stresses in particular ways because of the culture and that's why it's manifesting itself? Yes. And then even more, I didn't mean to point at you. The problem is that you can't point at you. Yeah. If you move, if you start somewhere else and you come here, the more they call a cultureation,

the more a cultureated you become, the more your symptoms pick up to the way you move to. So it's not your origin point necessarily to how you're actually living to. So it's not your origin point necessarily, how you're actually living now. So it's not genetic, obviously, that kind of rules out the fact that there may be some genetic component to a particular, it's called genetic. Yeah, it's epigenetic.

So it's things outside the genome, affecting the genome. Oh, geez. So basically, so I was like, oh wow, that's really cool. And that, So you're learning this before you go, I didn't even go, that was when I was in college. And then I went to medical school and then that's,

you know, it was all Western. No, like my friend always amazed. I took, so I had 75 teachers about, you know, 250 courses, how many were on nutrition? We talked about this all the time, I guess semester worth, right? Zero, not even one? I didn't have one. Wow. Zero, zero. anywhere on nutrition. We talk about this all the time, like a semester worth, right? Zero. Zero.

Not even one? I didn't have one. Wow. Zero, zero, zero. That's okay. Anyway, so then I was like, wait a minute though, what about this? And they're like, no, I'm like, okay.

And I kind of like, you know, you get into a system. And then you're kind of like, oh, I'm learning this system. And then when I got out of that system, I started going to residency. I went to came to UCLA and LA and I was like, I really want to, LA is easy to kind of expand though. It's very open. It's all sorts of things. So I was ultimately caught. Exactly. And then saw I was like, well, I want to, so I started meditating when I was there. And then I realized, whoa, you know, there's something in me that that really is is I needed to learn this, you know, that's why I resonated that one podcast. Um, I forget his name, the

Oh, that we know we know that we know. Yeah. Yeah. So then I did that. But also while I was there when I went to train at UCLA, um, the chairman's like, well, you have an interview at MD Anderson and you have a like 26 years of research. And that's when I was like 30. So he's like, well, you have an interview at MD Anderson and you have like 26 years of research. And that's when I was like 30. So he's like, why do you want to come to UCLA when you can go to MD Anderson, which is like the best, I was like, you want to know. And he's like, yeah, I was like, well, I want to be an actor. So I always, of course,

so my dad, my, and he was like, I wanted to be an actor. He's like, you know what? I really love actors because they're very creative. We'd love to have you do research with us here. And I was like, well, in fact, if you gave me a contract today, I'd sign it. And he's like, what? So in that on that day, instead of doing the match, which is if anybody's listening, that's a doctor that would be very frustrated with the story. But I got to circumvent this whole match process, a sonic contract for UCLA outside of this process, so I didn't have to do any of your views, no testing,

I got right in to UCLA that way. Wow. By saying I wanted to be an actor. Of all things. So anyway, so then I went through, so I started treating and acting, and I couldn't get to anger. I couldn't access anger.

So while you're trying to exemplify these emotions as an actor, I couldn't do it. So you can do sad, you can do, I think that'd be the easier one to emote. Well, this is very interesting. So culturally in a tie culture, one of the favorite things,

the phrase is called, might be in the right. It means it's okay, don't worry about it. That's how you take any kind of situation that comes to you. You don't, but it's fake, right? Because you're getting angry and you're like, oh, it's okay, but it's, you know, that's bullshit. And that's like, unless you're a Thai fighter, I think that's what I was saying.

So my dad's a Moi Thai fighter. Oh, no. Fighting Moi Thai. So I never won any fights when I was a fighter with my dad, but I won every other fight because I'm fighting with my dad's a Moitai fighter. Oh, no. For fighting Moitai. So I never won any fights when I was fighting with my dad. But I won every other fight because I'm fighting with my dad. But it's all elbows and knees, right? Except when you're a kid, you hit someone in elbow. It's not good for you with talking to their parents.

Because it's like elbows. You can't do that. You do some damage. You can't do some damage. Yeah, my dad's like, okay, we have a new advice for you. I said, what? He's like, punch him in the stomach. I was like, why is it, doesn't leave him on mark?

All right, down. I was like, okay. I like your dad. So anyway, so this is around about, but basically I couldn't feel anger, right? So then I was like, what's going on? My coach was like, well, well, let's start with your name. I was like, what do you mean?

She's like, say your name. I was like, Roy Vantama. He's like, is that a statement or question? I'm like, what do you mean? It's my name. She's like sitting on Roy Vontama. And then she's like, that's a question to me. Oh, I see. And you're sending it. Yeah. And I was like, it's my name. I don't know what you're talking when she's like, sit down. And there's other people in the class. She's doing this in front of a class. And I'm like, so next week I come back, she's like, okay stand up, say your name. It's like Royvantama.

And she's like sit on. And I was like, next week, I'm paying money for this. This is all I'm getting. Third week I get there. I'm like, I'm like, I'm gonna fucking kill her if she's gonna sit down. So she's like, she's like, what's your name? I'm like Royvantama. And then she's like sit on, I'm like, wait, what's your name? I'm like, Roy Fontama, and then she's like, sit down.

I'm like, wait, what is going on? I'm like, I'm saying my name, what is wrong? Like, she's like, you don't know who you are. Oh wow. You don't need an acting class, you need therapy. Oh shit, she said that. Yeah, and she goes, you're a good looking guy, and everybody, and I was like, what are you laughing about now? I'm like, well, you just say I're a good looking guy. Everybody, and I was like, and she goes, what are you laughing about now?

I'm like, well, you're just saying I'm a good looking guy because that's what, you know, I'm paying you. And she's like, oh really? You so you think, because you're paying me that I'm telling you a good looking while I'm telling you to go to therapy. And I'm like, yeah, she's like, okay. All the girls in the room, how many, or everybody,

how many people do you think it always good looking? And like everybody, I'm like, everybody raised their hand. I was like, what, I mean, the room, how many, or how many people you think it always go looking. And like everybody, I'm like, everybody raised their hand. I was like, what, I mean, the system, you're telling them a question where they have to raise their hand. She's like, you've got some serious problem. She's like, go do therapy. And I was like, you should say in fact,

you should go right now, forget this class. And I was like, fine, I'm not gonna, well, I paid for eight weeks, so I'm gonna come back. But I ended up going, started doing therapy. And in therapy, I found out that, wow, I'm really blocked from feeling this emotional stuff, right? And then when I went back to being a doctor, you know, I was still being a doctor during the day.

I was just doing this at night. I found that my cancer patients, the patient, so I was dealing with some an oncologist, that almost 90% had issues in this particular area, what I call the emotional house they had. Oh yeah, so I was like, I would ask some questions, I would ask them like, how's your, I started asking, like how's your relationship with your parents? How's your, did you have any trauma growing up? Did you have any bad experiences growing up? And 90% would say yes. And I was like, huh.

I was like, well, there must be something to this. And so I started using my acting training in this way. I was like, okay, well, I've learned how to access anger. I've learned how to access these emotions, and I realized if you don't have access, that means you're blocked. If you're blocked, then it probably caused disease. And then I was like, well, that's a big leap.

That's a big leap to take, right? You can't feel anger. Especially as a doctor, because you're like, I need evidence. Yes, I need evidence. So then I was like, well, I don't know where to look. Because it's not, so what I'm saying is like, I was like, I knew it.

I was like, well, resentment is causing disease, but I didn't know how to prove that, right? I didn't know how, what do you look for that? So you type in Google, right? Resentment and causing cancer and there's nothing, right? So for like a years, I was like, I don't know how to prove this, but I can interview all my patients and kind of get like a anecd don't know how to prove this, but I can interview all my patients and kind of get like a anecdotal feeling about how many of the work. And it was like 90%.

And finally, it came out that I was trying to publish this book. I had written most of it. And this one section was really kind of killing me because I wrote it, but I didn't know how to prove it, even though I had written it. I knew it was true, but I didn't know how to prove it. Even though I had written it, I knew it was true, but I didn't know how. So I go to this networking meeting and this guy walks up to me. I only had 10 minutes to be there.

He goes, have you read the Aces study? And I was like, what? He's like, Aces. I'm like, who are you? He's like, it doesn't matter. Aces, go read it. And I was like, okay. And he came up to me five minutes later. He's like, Aces, write it down. I'm like, okay. I don't know. And he came up to me five minutes later.

He's like, aces, write it down. I'm like, okay, I got it. What's your name? He's like, it doesn't matter. And I couldn't stand it longer. I never found this guy's name. This is like a true story. And I went home and I looked at the aces study.

Aces study is adverse childhood experience study. It's a study at a Kaiser and NIH, where they study 15,000 people. And they found that if you have a yes answer to any of these 10 questions, which is a physical abuse, a child, mental abuse, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, physical neglect, divorce, incarceration in the family, you witness domestic violence. If you have any of these yeses, you're more prone to depression, suicide, cancer. You double the risk of cancer if four of these questions are positive out of 10.

This is validated research. If you have seven out of 10, which is horrible, your risk of suicide is like 600 times higher, 300 times higher than the average person. If you have one, you have increased risk of sexual transmitted disease, increased depression, lower socioeconomic status, all these things, it's all validated in this research, this big study. So this came out a few years ago.

Now, I have a question about this. Is, did they control for the potential fact that, let's say, having abuse, being abused by your parents, growing up in maybe single parent household, whatever, that those situations also may mean that you are more likely to have poor diet, poor hygiene. Yeah, so it was all controlled by all of that, but I mean, obviously, You are more likely to have poor diet, poor hygiene. Yeah, so it's all controlled by all of that,

but I mean, obviously. So even if they control for that, they're finding. It's all, so it's related on its own. Wow. Which is why this is super significant, because this is the link I needed to really validate this work, because I had a few hundred, you know,

maybe 700 people I'd asked. This is 15,000, you know, maybe 700 people I'd asked. This is 15,000. You know, it's a whole different thing. It's run by, you know, a huge multi-million dollar study. And so what I found was like, okay, so here's the work. Here's the work. It's like you have your physical component, right? You have all the stuff you're doing in your body,

you know, which you guys are amazing about. And you're also great about the mind, right? You're putting all this mind work in, but it's also important to look at this emotional house, right, and then the spiritual house on top of it. So putting all of them together, you get this paradigm of complete health, you know, and you're all doing it anyway.

If you're trying to optimize one, you're gonna get pulled into another because if you wanna excel at something, you're gonna try to find everything you can to pull you in. So it's not really about doing everything. It's about doing something really well and then pulling what you can from these other things in. And that's kinda like my entry point for people.

It's like, look, find one thing you love. Do that thing and then build on that, build a momentum out of that one. It's interesting to me because, you know, Western medicine does such a good job of segmenting, segmenting the body, a human like you have your digestive system, you have your, you know, a vascular system, your central nervous system, we learn about the microbiome, or we learn about hormones, and they go deep, but they never connect all of them together.

If you look at all the other ancient health practices, whether it's Chinese medicine, or a vetic medicine, Eastern European medicine, they all seem to, they all tend to treat the person as this one whole type of organism. And these are, of course, these are, you know, practices that have lasted for thousands of years. And what we're seeing now with Western societies

is we're solving kind of these acute issues. But we have all these chronic issues that we have no solutions for because we're not looking at the whole person. Yeah. You know? And so someone coming from, did this change how you worked with your cancer patients? Oh yeah, 100%.

So what I do is because I have so many things going on. What I do is I cover a lot of different practices. And so if people don't know me and I'm rolling in, I'll be seeing a patient, all of a sudden it's dead quiet in there. And the nurse is like, what's going on in there? You know, it's something weird happening, you know? But no, I would be teaching a meditation, like right in the room.

I would go, I'll go see patients. I'm like, look, and I would look. The data shows if you do 90 minutes a week, 90 minutes a week is seven minutes twice a day. Okay, if you do seven minutes twice a day, it improves your immune system, increases your cell accounts, decreases your anxiety level, decreases your cortisol level and responses stress. If you can learn this one skill,

and I get teaches you right now, you might do it, right? So I would do that as part of my initial thing. I'd ask them, I'd ask them, hey, do you, well, first I'd ask them, do you guys do you eat, how's your diet? That's number one. And if they're like, I have to have greens, I have to have salad.

If we're talking about salad, we're not gonna get to meditation. You know what I mean? You gotta start, you gotta start. Big rocks for us. Big rocks, but if they're more open, I would go to, I would check how they are mentally, you know, if there's a victim mentality, you know,

there's quite a bit of dad on that. So I would, I would look to see, you know, there's two researchers, they talk about something called flourishing and languishing. Have you heard of this before? No. Okay. This is cool. So flourishing, what's flourishing? What would you define flourishing as? I mean, just thriving in everything you do, like just being energetic, happy to wake up and have purpose.

Yeah. How about languishing? What was that? Languishing. I mean, opposite of that or what? Yeah. Yeah, like stock. Like just starting in the mud or right? Quick sandwich. Okay. So they found that if you're if you're a flourishing mindset and languishing is almost like a victim mentality, right? Everything happens to me. I have no control. flourishing is like, I am in control. I run the show. Things are great for me. If you have that mindset, your immune system improves less rate of depression, higher income,

less chronic disease, less heart disease. If you can have this flourishing mindset, which you probably see in athletes, a lot of great athletes have this mindset, no matter what, they turn it. If you couple, there's another researcher that found a positive negative thought ratio. So this is the same as flourishing but setting different way. What would you say is a normal person's positive to negative thought ratio? Oh God. I think I've actually read this before. It's the amount of negative thoughts that interest someone's head in a day is like in the hundreds, isn't it? What would you say the ratio if you had to say?

I would say it's like a 10 to one, 10 negative to one positive. What would you say? I would agree with that. I might say it's probably around that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Let's go with all that.

I think what I can do is say like one out of two. Yeah. Say what you want. You gotta do the prices right. You can go contrary. I'll go and go one dollar, please. I'm not saying that. How about that?

One to one? One to one. You're gonna one to one? I'm gonna go one to one. No way. Okay, we've been okay. I know what I said. No, no, no.

He's closer to right. The actual ratio for someone who is actually in a languishing state is 2.5 to one, positive to negative. Okay. Wow. That's negative to negative. So two really half positive thoughts for every negative thought is still languishing. It is and because it's because negative thought

is more impactful. Oh, right. That makes sense. So it stops your behavior. Like you're like, go, should I talk to this girl? No, you know, she's so beautiful. You're thinking all these positive things, like I don't talk to her.

That's true. Boom, you know what I mean? So they found that if you have this ratio, again, you're more prone to depression, you're more prone to have a worse immune system, you're more prone to disease. Now what is a healthy, what is a person who's flourishing? Oh, gee.

Now that's got to probably be like a six to one or something like that. Yeah, okay. So it's four and a half to one. Oh, so it's at least almost twice as much. It's twice as much, but that isn't even optimal. That's if you're just basically flourishing, but if you notice you guys,

when you're having a great day, you're way above that. You're like, you're like, so the guy, you know James Andrews, the surgeon, he's a big surgeon in a carot or the beating surgeon. I'm probably related to him, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he operate to him, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he operate on AP, Adrian Peters.

Okay. Okay. So he operate on AP, and AP, he tours ACL the last game of the year. The normal recovery time is 14 months. His comeback is crazy. You know about, right? Yeah, of course.

He came back the next year. He wasn't supposed to play. He almost broke the all-time Russian record the next year back. Yeah. And they asked Dr. Andrews, like, what separate, what, I mean, how could it be, all these other NFL athletes coming? His self-fulief, he's like, well, obviously he's superior genetically than most people,

but he goes, his positive negative thought ratio was 10 to 1. Well. And then he said it in the interview, I go, what? So I was like, how did he go, oh, see see this makes perfect sense if you think about it this way. Okay, if you think of the way the human body evolved, your immune system and your body is constantly adapting to its environment and part of its environment is your perception of your environment.

So if you have negative thoughts, why wouldn't your body prepare itself or at least mold itself in a way? Of course it's gonna, of course it's gonna consider what you think about your environment because that's the filter. You're constructing your environment. So from a Western, even from a Western science point

of view, it makes fucking sense, but what's annoying is that for so long, the Western model has completely discredited it. In fact, you sound like you're crazy. Oh yeah, if you say something like pseudo science. Okay, whatever. So a funny story about that. So I've been giving talks like the last couple of years about this stuff, but I've been

decided, well, I'm going to do it to doctors because they didn't need to learn this. Oh great. How was the reception? Okay. So I go to crucify this stuff. I won't say. I went to this hospital downtown in LA and they're like, oh, the CME lady. She's like, I love your stuff.

It's so amazing. I've been meditate. Oh great. The audience is going to love it. So I start through this talk and I go, oh, well, you know, I, the CME lady. She's like, I love your stuff. It's so amazing. I've been meditating. Oh, great. The audience can love it. So I start through this talk and I go, oh, well, I call them affirmations, like positive statements. Affirmation only means statement in the positive. That's what it means. But because it's been kind of used by spiritual people, it sounds very fufu, right?

So I'm mistakenly used the word in the talk and I was okay, everybody, we're going to do some affirmations. And it's mostly all guys and it's all doctors and they know, we're talking like, oh, guy, it doesn't matter. These are the kind of guys that I'm talking to, right? This is where I'm starting. And I kind of didn't connect with the room on that level. I was just kind of like super excited. So I started, I'm like, let's do this affirmation. I had the study on the PowerPoint, and it was, and then I was like, okay, so this is the affirmation.

I used my cancer patients. It's, I am whole and I am healed. So I want you guys to do this in the room. So you guys sit. So you guys sit. I am whole and I am healed. Right. So I'm whole and I am healed.

So I had to do it a few times. Like the third, I was like, we're gonna do it six or seven times, right? This one doctor, he literally stands up. He stands up because this is a religion talk. Oh shit. And I was like, I was like, what? He goes, this is a religion talk. This is not a science talk.

And I was like, why are you saying that? He was like angry. He's like, I was like, can, why are you saying that? He was like angry. He's like, he's like, I was like, can you tell me what that says up there? And he's like, that's a journal article. And he's like, he's like, yeah, I'm like, where's it from? He's like, what does it say? He said, it says cancer.

And I'm like, that's a pretty big journal, right? And he's like, yeah, I'm like, is that a religion journal? And he's like, no. And another doctor goes, well, how do you know the research is real? And he's like, no. And another doctor goes, well, how do you know the research is real? Automatically biased. Automatically.

And I go, this is a study. This is a major top 10 journal. This is the showing that positive thought affects your system. I'm just showing you guys what he goes, well, how do you know this is a real study? I go, you can say that about any study then. You can say about any journal, any study. And then a guy's was like, well, yeah.

And I'm like, you know what that's called? That's called confirmation bias. That's just because you don't believe it, it's fake news, right? It's whatever. I mean, it's like, so then I was like, as I kind of continue with the talk, and he's like, okay, so you sat back down.

So I was kind of like, hmm, I was a little snarky with him, you know, and I was like, at the end, the CME lady, she was like, well, I'm sorry that happened. I'm like, no, actually it was good, because I need to have some feedback, and I realized I was a little bit too foofoo with the way I said the word positive thought. I use the word affirmation.

And then she goes, you know what? He also didn't leave. He could have left, and he stayed to hear the rest of the talk. So it kinda like she goes, you know what? He also didn't leave. He could have left. And he stayed to hear the rest of the talks. So it kind of like sometimes, you know, and you guys know, when you work with people, then you just say it a few times, sometimes you're to get in for them to really take it in and get the message. So it's not that I'd stop talking to Dr. Ildo, I'm a little, you know, I'm definitely considering my wording, right? And then you have to be careful how you sell it to them.

Yeah. The other word they don't like is toxicity. Oh, of course. They don't like talk. So what's toxicity? And I was like, well, I'm like the stuff you're putting in that's not good for your body. Like where's the research on toxicity? Oh, gosh.

It doesn't deliver filter all this toxicity out. Those are the other thing I got. A lot of the other questions were like, so you're saying this is toxic as well? This negative thought is toxic? And I was like, okay. So particular audiences need to hear, that's what I learned from that. Yeah. What I find oftentimes with Western medicine is what's left at eventually starts to become

part of the protocol. Yeah. Because 2015 years ago, if you walked into a room full of doctors and scientists and talked about the gut microbiome that would have laughed at you. They would have said it's not a big, that it doesn't mean anything, it's not a big deal, and now we're finding it is.

But thoughts and emotions, that's the next big one. Oh, it's you. But it's still not necessarily being adopted. Well, it's hard for us to measure, that's why. Yeah. Until we can measure it, right? That's why we're gonna, and we, it's hard for us to measure. That's why yeah until we can measure it Right, that's that's why we're gonna you're game will get pushed back until that date comes Well, they do they there are studies that show well here's a thing. What about the placebo effect? Yeah, we've been we've been accounting for that for decades

I talked about that my book. Yeah, yeah So let's talk about that for a second. So so in my book I totally look at that So the placebo effect has been well known like people who are listening have heard that term But what it is is is basically like we give you a pill, right? That we say has something in it and then we give the other group a sugar pill. And oh well, one is a sugar pill. We say has something it doesn't have in it.

The other one has the actual drug. And if you give them the placebo, they find that you get 25 to 50% of the patients have the response that they're supposed to have that they're told to have. Which, that's a lot. It's huge. Quarter to half is a lot.

This is, so we're talking about belief. We're talking about, I mean, and then people are like, well, that's a placebo. I'm like, well, that's what that means. That's what it means. This is all, it's just the word has this connotation that means in our minds, in Western minds, it means it's nothing.

And so you've just said the power of the mind is nothing. But actually, it's 25 to 50%. It's 25 to 50% of the game. And in some cases, in particular, with pain, because pain is a perception, it can be even higher. You know, I had a client once who had chronic shoulder pain for years, came and hired me, and I did my physical assessment,

we did exercises and identified some muscle and balances and recruitment pattern issues, nothing major, we fixed them. We fixed them, great movement, great mobility, still had shoulder pain, and at this time, I had this kind of this esoteric massage therapist that worked for me. It was really into meditation and stuff.

And she kept telling me, it's not her shoulder anymore. This is in her mind, it's real. She feels it, but it's not coming from her shoulder. So I sat down with this client and I asked her, I said, we talked about when this shoulder pain happened. And it happened when she was doing an activity that she loved growing up, hurt her shoulder, she had to stop that activity. It happened when she was doing an activity that she loved growing up, hurt her shoulder, she had to stop that activity. It became very traumatic for her. So we were

having this conversation, this client's like, are you telling me that it's not real? I said, no, it's real because you feel it, but I don't think it's coming from your shoulder. And we've had imaging, your movement patterns are good. I think this is something you've attached to. And the funny thing is the pain went away, which was really weird. The next time I saw her, we're talking and just went away and it didn't come back and she's like, this is very, very strange, but I've seen this before.

Okay, so what's your explanation? I think, and now I'm no means an expert on this at all. It's my own speculation, but I think that she identified with that pain for a long time and perceived it and she had to kind of forget it, like say, okay, well, it's not there anymore. Okay. So that's partially true, is that so there's two things in that, and this is validating again in the research, is that you were there, and you allowed her to express it again, have

it be real, have it be felt again, in a different way, she's not the kid she was, right? She's an adult now, but until she re-experiences the event and there's an empathetic connection, because you're like, I feel you, I wanna help you, I'm here for you, and you allowed her to say it. They found it in the research, that is what allows for improvement.

So if you look at the research in, like cognitive behavioral therapy or any kind of therapy, the one that's been validated across all things is if the therapist is empathetic. That's the only time the person gets benefit. In fact, you don't even have to have a technique to give them. If you just listen and you empathize with them from where they are, they found that that is the improvement.

And if you improve that emotionally, it has a result in the physical. So that's why. And the research shows us. Yeah. Well, do they have any research to show cancer survival rates with changes of attitude? And, you know, do they have any research on that to show? Yeah, okay, so that's an interesting question. So, if you look at, in terms of cancer itself, because cancer, okay, so say you have everybody, everybody, especially in L.A., there's a lot of conspiracy stuff going on,

like in people's minds, you have the pill, right? The cancer cure, they only get the pill. You know, the pill that cures cancer. I'm like, okay, we have the pill, right? Oh, the cancer cure that I'm like, they only get to what pill, you know, the pill that cures cancer. I'm like, okay, we have a lot to talk about. But, you know, what is is like every cancer on average has like 67 mutations going on in there. So the reason I'm telling you this is because positive thought on its own doesn't show

a change in cancer. It improves immune system, right? But that's like a basic groundwork, right? The research has shown if you do positive thought, you change your diet, you start some meditation, you get into support groups. Now you've hit the physical with the diet, you start to exercise, right? Okay, so let's see. So the diets amounts to about in cancers, about 15%, 15%, exercise amounts about 25%. If you look at positive thought, amounts to 25, the 35%, if you took in the emotional component, amounts about 25, 30%, you add in the meditation, another 20, you know, now we're 150% I do the percentages wrong.

But if you put them all together, that package has been shown to improve survival. So this is the thing I think in America, we have this thing where like, oh, like I gave a talk to their day and we're talking all this stuff and one lady asked about, you know, like, you know, how about diet?

And I talked about this one mushroom. And at the end of the talk, people wanted to know where to get this mushroom. And I was like, well, what, what, what, what, what, wait a minute? Like the mushroom is just one little, it's just one part of one thing. Like, yeah, but where do we buy it?

I'm like, oh, this is, this is how we've been trained. It's like, you know, give me something from the outside that will fix me. Something simple and easy. Something simple and easy. And actually, it is simple, it's not easy. So then it's like, if you're already living like a healthy lifestyle, that's one thing, but it's really daunting for people who are not in good health already to have

them say, hey, look, you need to meditate, you need to change your diet, you need to start exercising, you need to, you know, so I never start there with people, but if you look at, if you look at the research, that is where the data has been shown to be pot, to really affect things. Do you think part of the reason why doctors don't, because I used to train a lot of doctors and surgeons and we would have these conversations? And I was a personal trainer and I would say, why don't you talk more about nutrition

and exercise with people? And they used to tell me, even though a lot of them didn't have training in that, like you said, they would say to me, you know, the adherence rate is so low. Like, you tell someone to take a pill, this is a crazy thing. Statistically speaking, you get blood, you know,

pressured pills, there's a large percentage of people that won't even do that. So they said, forget about telling people to change their lifestyle. Do you think that's part of it? Do you think it's part of it where the doctor's like, it's a waste, like if I tell someone to change. Yeah, you know?

Yeah, I keep throwing medical words, but they call that nililism, you know, nil I keep throwing medical words, but they call that nihilism. You know, nihilism is like, you just don't think it's gonna work, so why bother doing it? It exists in practitioners, because we're on the other side, we're getting very barrage by people

who don't want to change. You know, so there's actually a really cool study. They have people, okay, so you're a guy, you're a smoker, you have a heart attack. You end up in the hospital, right? You almost died. You're told to change three things. One, stop smoking, change your diet, and exercise.

Everybody, a hundred percent of the men agreed to this, right? At six months, how many are doing one of the three? Oh, half? One. One guy. Oh, what did you say? I would say half is a good guess. Okay.

I said half, yeah. 20%. 20%. 20%. You got the computer in front of you. Yeah, that's the key. You got, I'm giving a lot of quizzes too. I don't know why, but a third.

A third will do one. Just one. We'll do one. This is after 100%. How many of them actually complete all three? Okay, that's the last question. That's the last question. What percentage do you are doing all three at six months? Oh, that might be just what I was saying.

That's what I was saying. Yeah, it all three. It all three. I'm 10%. Two to three percent. Wow, yeah. After almost dying. Almost dying.

That's crazy. Okay, so what does that mean? That means though, the implication of this is that, is that, is that change is very hard. Behavioral changes are very difficult, but one out of three will make one change. Okay, so yeah, you can look and say,

oh my God, it's hard, yeah, it's hard. Because you're putting them right back into the environment that they got the disease in, they got the problem. They're going back to the same job, the same wife, or the same husband, depending, you know, orientation. But it's same, everything, same lifestyle, and you're asking him to change out of that environment. It's really hard, you know?

So what I tell people is like, look, pick one thing. Pick one thing. If they told you these are the three things, just say in this situation, heart disease. If these three things exercise, smoking, diet, if you change one and 30% are gonna do it, okay? That's pretty good actually. So I always tell people, look, pick one thing.

Commit, right now I want you to commit and I was having a razor hand like a vowel, I say, take a vowel. For seven days you'll do this one thing. You'll do this one thing. You'll do this one thing. And they're like, I can do that. Everybody commits to seven days. I'm like, okay, if you do seven days,

then maybe you can do another seven days. So a lot of it, I think, is, yeah. You're paying your patience. When you understand psychology, right? What you do, this is the same way that we talk on the show about how we coach people with nutrition. Like we've learned over all the years, you know, as a trainer, I can do all your measurements, figure out your body type, your movement, and I could write you the diet to get shredded. But what I have found is one, the adherence to that is crippling. It's

terrible that people that will actually fall through on that. Yeah. Even the ones that do it's short term and they go back. So therefore, how do I handle that as a trainer? Well, we figured out a long time ago, like, okay, instead of me handing you a diet, same follows, I want to see what you're doing. Mm-hmm. So I have them track for a week, document everything, and then I pick one thing. Whether that be adding some greens into the diet. And that's it. That's all we talk about. We're not gonna talk about the fucking donuts,

we're not gonna talk about the sodas, we're not gonna talk about any of that right now. We're not gonna talk about one fucking thing that I see that's wrong in this picture and see if I can change that one behavior and then build upon that. And then we've had a lot more success when you do that. This is part of what we talk about on this show,

I think that's counter to the fitness culture. The fitness culture is a lot of like the Western medicine culture. It's like they want to see just the science. Nobody wants to talk about the psychological part and realizing how much of that it's a factor. And in our space, which I would argue yours is similar, we've come to find that that's everything. Because if you don't believe you're going to do it,

if you can't create those behaviors, then all the other shit that we talk about, it's almost moot. No, fundamental behaviors are changed, little by little, there are, with challenging changes that are also realistic, and then you take the next step, you build confidence, you build strength, you move, that's how fundamental behaviors

are changed successfully. The other way is through epiphany, which I found to be rare. It's rare where someone has an epiphany, like all of a sudden that's it. I'm quit smoking, I quit drinking, I'm changing my life. Very, very rare, what's more common is the slow changes. Yeah, and I've told you, this is great.

And the other thing you guys didn't say, because humbly you're saying, but they have an accountability with you. It helps. They have an accountability with you. So to do it in a vacuum is difficult, but when you have some, oh, I needbly you're saying, but they have an accountability with you. It helps. They have an accountability with you. So, to do it in a vacuum is difficult, but when you have some, oh, I need to check back in, you know, it improves. So, you guys didn't say that, but I'll give you guys credit.

I saw that. You guys do that. You have a platform to give them accountability and check back in with them. And that is half the battle, just knowing you're not alone. Well, something, and I was saying this earlier, when Adam asked the question, but what I was saying is your patients must love you. And the reason why I said that is I experienced first hand

what it's like to have somebody close to you, be diagnosed with cancer and then watch them die. Somebody very close to me, she was diagnosed with Linitis Plastica, which is a very, very deadly form of stomach cancer. And I think we would have loved, even if it worked or didn't work, even if the outcome was the same,

I would have loved to have been able to sit down, could I actually go to all of our appointments with her? And I'm a health and fitness guy, and I would ask things like, hey, what about diet? Oh, that's not gonna make a difference. Or, but to be able to sit down with someone and for the doctor to actually sound like they care enough

to talk to you about your lifestyle and your feelings, that alone, even if it doesn't make you live longer, it's gotta improve just how you feel during the process. Yeah, what does that first visit look like? Somebody coming in, just got diagnosed. Well, that's interesting. There's some, I appreciate, thank you. There's the, sometimes I get the classic

when you see in the movies is like the patient comms and there's like 12 family members with them. They want to duck how long is he gonna live? Okay, and then I come in, I'm like, okay, first of all, nobody in this room makes that out of life. Okay, nobody in this life, in America, we're all about like, you live forever, you live forever. What, what?

And then when you die, it's like, it's like, it's so super horrible. And in the Eastern tradition, it's not true. It's like, it's just another part of your journey. So I immediately take that off the table. So the first visit, I'm the Eastern tradition, it's not true. It's like, you know, it's just another part of your journey, you know, so I immediately take that off the table. So the first visit, I'm like, look, if you have that fear that you're gonna die, I'm gonna tell you right now it's gonna happen, you know?

Now we're just talking about how that's gonna happen, you know, and then they're like, oh, oh yeah, okay. So immediately it takes off the table. And then the next thing I think I say is like, look, and the next question always is, how long does he have? How long do they have? How long does he have?

And this is the second thing I say, listen, nobody in this room can tell you how long you have. Nobody can. If you sit across from a doctor and they tell you you have a certain amount of time, they're wrong. They don't know. Now, if you look at thousands of time, you know, they're wrong. They don't know. You know, now if you look at thousands of people, person with, you know, the stomach cancer, survival rates, you know, for five years,

are on 15 to 25% if it's advanced, right? It's not very good. So, but I don't think it's helpful as the patient to hear the person that you've given power to across the way, to hear them to say you have a 15% chance to make it a five years. Because all they hear is 15%. All they hear is six months.

All they hear, they only are listening because they're so scared. All they hear is that 85% chance of dying. Yeah, it's so easy to do that. It's very easy to do it. And then you don't, because they're not trained in thinking about, well, that's thousands of to do it. And then you don't, because they're not trained in thinking about, well, that's thousands of people.

That means out of a thousand people, 150 people are living, but let them, or 250 people are living five years. So it's actually a lot of, it's more than you think, but also as the person sitting across, I don't know what you have,

because I've seen people with brain disease, brain metastasis. I've seen them live for a long time, years, and the research shows you'd be about three and a half, four or five months. So, I never said, I saw a guy who's eight years out, and he's got, he said, oh yeah, he's how you doing, I just played tennis. I'm like, okay, cool. So then, I don't give them false hope, but I'll never say, like, so, you know, the other doctor said six months,

you think it's six months? Like, who's telling you this? Like, is this the same guy that told you not to have a salad? Because it's probably the same guy, right? It's this guy, he tells you you're gonna die. You, nutrition doesn't matter, and just take my chemo, you know, like what, you know, what, that's not, that's not, no.

Do you get a lot of pushback from the family for this type of? No, they love it. They love it. I would have loved it I would have loved it if I had a doctor like you with her. Yeah, it would have been great Well, you it's um, you know, that's the thing. It's kind of like um, you know I'm here's it this is why I was telling like listen, I'm like look what what do you want on a life? I'll ask them like you know you have this thing now. What do you want? You know? What do you want on a life? I'll ask them, you know, you have this thing now. What do you want? You know, what do you want? They're like, oh, I've never thought about that.

I'm like, well, that's probably why you're in this situation. I don't say that, but that's like, do you know what is important to you? Do you know what you're trying to live for? You know, so, this is actually this lady, I, we did the book launch on Saturday and this lady came, and the whole,

the whole, my whole platform, my whole thing's about ownership. It's all about ownership. And this lady came and the whole the whole my whole platform my whole things about ownership It's all about ownership and this lady came me she's like I love what she said She's like I'd like to come see you and have you be my doctor and I say well Do you have cancer and then she's like no? I'm like well, and you can't be my patient But but I was like I was like wait, but the whole in a second um Did you did you were here? She's like oh, yeah? I heard what you said. She's like I love to have you I want someone to help me and fix all the stuff

I have going on. And I was like, wow, I go, how about this? I'm gonna give, you can read the book or you can, you know, we have this free email course we're doing. It's all about ownership. And she's like, that's great, but I wanna come see you.

I want you to treat me. And I was like, oh, this is the part that's missing in most people. Like, you don't need me, you need you. You need you. You need you to be on your team. And so when I sit across from people, like the guy, you know, if he has a bad disease, as strong as a family, like, what do you want out of this? And once we find out what you want, then I'm saying, I won't come and help you get that. I'm going to help you get that. That's awesome.

Yeah, I, I, when I used to, like I said, I trained a lot of doctors for a while, and one thing that was interesting to me, and they all agreed, was when they were working with people who are terminal, that they can almost, I forgot what percentage, one of them said, one of them told me like, with 80% accuracy, I can predict when someone's

about to die, and not because of their their labs or because of their physical health, but because of when they decide, like I'm going to go. And this is the person I'm talking to you about who had the cancer. This happened with her. It was about a year and a half out of her, you know, when she got diagnosed, she had to go to the hospital because she had a sideys, which is just lots of fluid in her abdomen. She had to have it, you know, pulled out or whatever. And they did all the tests and stuff. And she was in the hospital and they said, oh, you know, her organs look fine, liver's functioning fine, kidneys are functioning fine, heart is functioning fine. So she's got at least a few more months or whatever. She's going to be fine. So there's no signs that she was going to die. So she's got at least a few more months or whatever. She's gonna be fine. So there's no signs that she was gonna die.

So she's in the hospital. The next morning she calls me up and she's like, I'd like you to come to the hospital. Like, is everything okay? And she goes, yeah, but I'd like you to come here. So, okay. So I get there and she had called all of her family members and close friends and she said goodbye to everybody.

And she had made peace with the fact that she was gonna be gone. She died the next day. And I brought made peace with the fact that she was gonna be gone. She died the next day. And I brought that up to the doctors and they all said, oh yeah, we see that happen all the time. Is that a true thing that people see? Yeah, you know, I mean, this is, so, there's a couple ways to look at this, the question is how to look at,

you're talking about the soul, you're talking about spirituality, talking. I don't know, I think it's so strange. I mean, so my background is, The question is how to look at, you're talking about the soul, you're talking about spirituality, talking about the soul. I don't know. I think it's so strange. I mean, so my background is I have done like 7,000 hours of meditation. So I come from a pretty strong spiritual background of kind of finding this thing. And that's how I kind of look at the world from this perspective. Is that the body is not who we are, we're this thing inside.

Not to take it way out, but we're the soul inside, you know, and we have the willpower, we have the choice, you know, you look at any spirit tradition, they all say the same thing. It's like, you know, it's like there's this soul inside that's doing this thing. So if you look at the research though, you'll find that people, for example, who are, if you look at the like spouse's spousal research where one person dies, the longer they've been married, you know, the more likely that that, if that person dies

within the next year, it's like a, it's a very high percentage camera number. That will go. I've seen that. And if you've seen somebody who's spouse has passed away, they just don't want wanna be here anymore. They're depressed. Yeah.

They age 10 years of very nice. Yeah, they're just like, they're just like, if you had someone that said, you know, they don't wanna be here anymore. My grandmother, she passed away last year, and she was 92, and the night I was here in LA,

and she was in Thailand, and my mom was there there and she's like, oh, I wanted to call you. Grandma's not looking great. Her feet are getting blue, you know? And then I was like, okay, well, that's not good. And so the grandkids came over all bunch of them. And my mom was like, oh, touch her and tell her

that you love her before she goes. You know, so Thailand's like that. They'll come and say, touch it and they'll say, love you, grandma, love you. All the blood started coming into her feet again. She came back and my mom called me. She's like, oh, we brought her back. I go, mom, what are you doing?

She's trying to leave. She's trying to leave. She, and I was like, you know what? Tell them to go home. They're like, no, well, no. They're gonna come back tomorrow. They think it's working. I'm like, mom, she's 92.

She has bed sores, she has huge bed sores, she's sick, she's just let her go. And so she's like, okay, so no one was allowed in the room. She's gone the next day. Wow, that's crazy. And is there research on that? I haven't seen any, but maybe we're talking

someone can email me what they found. You know, there's people have looked at this in other countries, but has it looked at it in a rigorous way? I haven't seen anything, but my experience is exactly what you said. Interesting. And that's what they said too. And it was like, it blew me away. What are some practices, or do you have some practices that you give to people that they can do for themselves, to help themselves with their mindset? Absolutely. Yeah. You know, so there's the thing that I really, really like for people to do as far as the mind. And this is, again, it was valid in the research, is gratitude. Okay. So this is simple. So like people are listening, like, this is what I ask you to do.

Like, this is the easiest entry point to change your mind. It's right down at the end of your day, five things that you're grateful for. Five things, give me anything. Like, oh, I saw a hummingbird. Oh, you know, they call me back. Oh, this guy let me in the lane. Oh, I had this really nice pair. It doesn't matter what it is, but they found that in the research that if you practice gratitude, it improves your immune system, it improves your, you know, it improves everything, you know, and they found that if you can put this practice into play, it has bigger, bigger effects as time goes on. So initially, you don't see it except for a feeling of well-being. Now what's the reason behind this?

It's because, say if we all had a great, oh, I did this great Mind Pump podcast today. I re-experienced the joy that I felt earlier in the day. I'm hitting myself with endorphins again. A second hit, your brain doesn't know the difference between the initial event and the memory of the event. It doesn't know the difference, which is why trauma is so impactful, which is why that emotional trauma, because you're replaying a lot of these events through current events, you know. So, what that's one practice is, you know, write down five things every day. So you tell people do that every day at night, five things. I brought journals for you guys,

these gratitude journals. Oh, thank you. So all you do is just write down five things every day. So there's like a whole bunch of research that shows that what are the criteria that's improved. So now you're starting to think in your mind like positive things, you know, and that's the easiest entry point, you know, that's one thing I tell them to do. The second

thing I tell them to do is, if you're out there and you're kind of a negative, like the problem with negative thought is in that you have a negative thought, it's the second third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, like spiral fence, right? Yeah, it's like, it's like, okay, so you're someone cuts in the car. Like, what the fuck are you doing, man? And then the second thought is, this always happens to me. This always happens to me when I'm coming to work. Why didn't Jane, she parked her car behind me. If she didn't park there, I wouldn't take

me extra three minutes to go all of a sudden. You're chaining all these thoughts, right? So, this is another practice you can do. Is you realize you're a chainer that you have these chaining things going on, you just say, oh, when you see the first thought, you go, oh, there's that thing I do. You say, oh, there's that thing I do.

I think I'm up to that thing. I'm not gonna do that thing. By creating, and this is the other point when you had with that lady, is like, you create awareness around an issue issue You have 50% chance of doing better Because otherwise you only have one way to go you have the way that you always go So we give you give them another choice point say give create choice points and then then this is where the ownership comes I'm like, okay, now you know that you do this are you willing to take the change?

Are you willing to pick this as your one thing to change? Are you willing to be in the 30% of changing your mind? Are you willing to say, okay, I'm a trainer? Yep, okay, so. And I was just say, well, there's that thing I do. Well, you know, maybe I'll, yeah, okay, I'll let it go. I know. See, because this is another tie-in though, is interesting.

So what I call that thing, you know, when you have road range, I call that mushrooming. So if you have something in your life that happens, like if someone cuts you off, right? And you're like, what the fuck, man? What the fuck is wrong with you? You know, you're up in them, you're yelling at them and you're like, you know them?

You know, like they did this to you personally. You're like, I'm scum, I'm not a talking, you know. But I'm still stuck on mushrooming. Okay, okay. You have something else. Sorry, right, no. That's, no. So the reason why I call it mushrooming is because you have this blow up over an event that doesn't mean anything.

So it's actually a marker of something else. It's actually a sign that you have on-doubt with emotional baggage. Oh, isn't almost any out, lashing out with anger is almost always a reflection of yourself. But there's appropriate anger. Like if you're outside and your appointment's at 10 and it's 10.45, you're like,

that's pretty disrespectful. I'm a little, yeah, I'm all three. I'm angry at three. You know, you walk in like, yeah, not really happy about, you know, you're angry, but you're not breaking down the door. But if you break down the door, when it should just be kind of like a thing,

that's mushrooming. So there's grades, right? So if you're blowing up like that, that should be a marker to you that you're in the, thinking, changing your mind in that situation isn't really gonna help, because you've not dealt with the real issue. You've not dealt with the emotional package. You've not dealt with the emotional package.

You've not dealt with the fact that you believe that in situations you're getting this raw deal, a big, big raw deal, right? Hopefully I'm not talking about something in this room. You're like, that's it. So, well, I have kids and I noticed this. If there's something else that's going on in my mind, I am way more short and way less forgiving and less empathetic towards my children.

And I've learned to catch myself now in that process where like, why am I getting so mad that my daughter left her shoes? Right. You know, not in the place that there's supposed to be. This is an inappropriate level of irritation. Yes, that's mushrooming. So, so the question is, is like, you know, how do we not call that bandwidth? How do you create more bandwidth so that when you have stuff in your life that's going

to happen? You have kids. They're going to irritate you. But how do you create enough bandwidth so it doesn't create an untoward reaction toward them? And so it's creating the system beyond that moment because it's not the moment that's causing the problem. The problem is you've started with only this because a lot of it was taken up by this,

right? So I'm holding my hands, nobody can see it, but basically it's like, you know, it's less capacity, because it's less capacity. So it's like creating this capacity. How do you create capacity? How do you create it in an effective way? So this is where meditation comes in. Okay, so the data on meditation shows that if you do this seven minutes twice a day, you

can skip one day, which makes you still around 90 minutes. If you do that, it's found that it finally improves, it rewires your brain. Okay, if you look on functional MRI, it changes your brain chemistry by doing this 90 minutes a day, decreases anxiety, it improves your cell counts in your white cell counts that are involved in your immune system. But here's the big thing, and this is what they see in the data,

is that in a response to a stressful situation, your cortisol level is much less than someone who doesn't meditate. So you don't get that hit of cortisol, of the adrenal glands firing, releasing this stuff into your body that is like a fight or flight mechanism. So your reaction, your response is not,

blunted might not be the right word, but you're not getting the extreme reaction because of the meditation to do other things. Yeah, so they found that you, so when we talk about rewiring people, what the hell is that mean? It means like in your frontal cortex and your brain, you're actually having more space.

You're having more neurons in order to process an event so that instead of having one neuron going and you're like, ah, you know, why are you doing that? You have like 10. And so maybe only two or three are taken up by this information versus just three. So if you walk in a situation and you feel overwhelmed a lot, it's because your brain can't handle it. You know, they found people have strokes like they've get, I have a friend, he's young, he just had a stroke and I asked him, what's the big problem?

Like he was, he lost, he's 44, he had a stroke. Really, a lot of other issues going on, but in this particular case, I was like, what's your big deficit? He's like, he had a stroke, really a lot of other issues going on. But in this particular case, I was like, what's your big deficit? He said, well, thankful I got my hand movement back. But the main thing is I feel overwhelmed all the time. I feel overwhelmed. I can't walk in a situation and process the information. And so you see that in stroke patients is that when your brain doesn't have the capacity anymore to take it, you feel this overwhelmed, you know.

And you're saying meditation increases that capacity, or increases your bandwidth. Yeah, and also I wanted to mention, like I use the word meditation, but I noticed a lot of people in other talks have gotten like, I'm Christian, I don't do meditation. I'm like, okay, let me change the word. Same thing as prayer.

Let me change the word contemplation. Let me change the word mindfulness-based stress reduction. If you look in the literature, they can't use meditation because you can't get meditation funded. But if you do mindfulness-based stress reduction. Oh gosh. It's all the same thing. That's so funny.

I thought meditation has a long history in Christianity. Prayer. You'd say prayer. You would say prayer. All spiritual, all spiritual, you know, prayer. Mystical Christians, they'll, you know, prayer. Mystical Christians, they'll call contemplation. Yeah, but it's a very, it's a, like I gave a talk at,

I won't say it was hospital, but it's a Catholic hospital in LA. And they, the priest that was there was listening and he was, I love, I love it. And then I start talking about meditation. And then the talk, he was like, yeah, I saw the data, but we don't, it's against our beliefs. And I was like, wait, what? I'm the, this is research, this is science stuff.

And he's like, yeah, but the meditation, I can't tell people to do that. And I was like, oh, wait, let me, let me, then by then it was already over for that situation, but I learned later, I'm like, okay, if I'm in this situation, be careful with the words you choose, because there's some connotations that people get. We're back into mind and attitude,

and it's like, okay, how about mind from this base stress reduction? Oh, that is great. I'm like, okay, let's sit down, I'll show you how to do it. MBSR, MBSR, you learn a new thing, MBSR, and they're like, oh, this is great, I'll teach all of them after prayer, we'll do MBSR, I'm like, yep, that's how we do it, we'll do prayer in the MBSR and they're like, oh, this is great. I'll teach all of them after prayer. We'll do MBSR. I'm like, yep, that's how we do it.

We'll do prayer in the MBSR. So for people this, because we've talked about meditation before, but the question I always get is, how I've never done it before, how do I start? What's an easy way people can start practicing this? This is super easy. Okay, everybody listen, you can do it right now. You can do this right now.

And let's do it right now. Let's do it together. Okay, seven minutes. No, no, no, no, no, seven, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Exhale. Hhhhh. Inhale. Hhhhh. Tense the whole body. Exhale. Hhhhh. You're meditating.

Oh, all right. Wasn't that really hard? Okay, so here's the thing about meditation people get really freaked out. Oh my God, my mind goes all over the place. I can't meditate. It's not about that, okay? The fact that you know that your mind was going all over the place, you can't meditate. It's not about that, okay? The fact that you know that your mind

was going all over the place, you were, proves that you're meditating. You didn't even know your mind was going on. Let it flow. Yeah, so actually the dad, this again, talking about research, I was going back to the research. You can't meditate, you can't do any of that unless you're relaxed.

So what we did right there, we hyper-oxygenated, deep breath, we tense the body, right? You ever get in a fight with your wife and you say, relax. Say, relax, what happens? That's the worst thing you can ever say. Okay, so taking that exact situation, I told you to tense. And your body goes to relaxation automatically. Oh, brilliant.

I tricked you. That's interesting. So you trick everybody, that's how you do it. Just tense the body, inhale, and then relax. And then exhale and then let go of your hands. And let go. And then when you're sitting there, we had almost three seconds of meditation right there. Yeah, I won't do any longer.

We'll lose everybody. I felt it though for those three seconds. You see it? You felt it. There was a moment. Oh, everything was still. So you can't meditate if your? You've all said it. There's a moment. Oh, everything was still. So you can't meditate if your body's carrying all this tension.

But if you look at the word disease, right? Dizzies. Dizzies. The answer is in the word ease. So we've got to create that in our lives. And you can have this ease. You just create tension and then let it go. And then your body automatically will go toward this relaxation phase.

You know, the irony of all this is, you know, because we talk a lot about nutrition and exercise and all that stuff. When people start to do these practices where they're showing gratitude or, you know, marking down gratitude or having a gratitude practice where they do some form of meditation. They start to care about themselves a little more. They all start to want to eat and exercise. They all start wanting to eat better and exercise. It's all part of the same kind of process.

They all lead into each other. And then on the flip side, when I have people who really focus on working on the nutrition, but in a real way, I find that they start to fall into these other practices as well. That's a great observation. The thing with this ACE study I talked about before, the reason why the study came about

was because they actually, Casio does this big thing about live-a-weight loss clinic. They're super successful as long as you're in the program. They add like 70, even people who left the program, they lost weight. But they found they asked the people who left the program and they interviewed them. They found like they have interview like 300 that had dropped out. They found that 80% had emotional. That's one of the trauma things positive. So, so what we're doing by creating the gratitude is like we're trying to create, we're trying to rewire your brain To release endorphins in these situations by remembering the positive things in your life

They found that in the research though with gratitude. It's not necessarily you're thinking positive things It's that you're not thinking negative things So they found that it's not about creating positivity It's not giving because the 2.5 to one thing we're talking about before the research and positive thought ratio, they found that the people who in the gratitude research, they found that people who think positive are actually doing better than people who think neutral. They're the same.

It's the people who think negative are the ones that are getting really hurt. So if you look at back at the people that you take care of too, it's like, while why are we having trouble getting gains with this person, it's because that there's something underneath that that's, they're using as a protective mechanism, right? You've seen that with fairly big people, right? Oh, oh my gosh. It took me seven years to figure that out as a trainer and then it became far more successful of a trainer.

Yeah. When I realized that it was that component right there, that was everything. And it's everything. You give them that empathy, you give them that and I'm sure there's a lot of people working the fitness industry here. If you really want to build your clientele, if you listen to them, if you let them talk in your session, you will build like crazy. It's so true. It's so funny that you're saying that you're not a trainer. If you think you will or you won't, you're probably right. Yeah.

Yeah, so what were the, so you went through gratitude? What was the second one? Was it meditation or was it? We did tensor relax. Tensor relax. You want me, you want another one? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, that's super cool. So, okay, let's do this one. So, we're going to do another exercise. Everybody's going to do another exercise. You guys ready? Okay, so we're gonna tense and relax one time. Now this next inhale, I Want you to visualize in your mind the most beautiful thing you've ever seen like the like the birth of your baby or

Something beautiful sunrise anything. You have that thing, you have that thing, I want you to close your eyes, I want you to inhale that picture into your brain. You see that thing, and exhale. Two. Third breath, I want you to put in front of your nose, smel, the most beautiful thing you've ever smelled. Like a rose, can you have that thing? It could be barbecue, it's the smell, the most beautiful thing you've ever smelled. Like a rose.

Can you have that thing? Could be barbecued, doesn't matter. So inhale. Smell it like it's in front of you. Thank you. Oh. Okay, exhale. Okay, what do we just do?

I think we just experience those things. You re-experience those things, right? Okay, so this goes back to that research, is that, so what we did was in three breaths, this is super good to do. If you're a person who gets in fight or flight a lot, so for people who listen, don't know what that is, it's a fear or anger reaction in a stressful situation,

you either wanna beat somebody up or you wanna run away, that's a fear or anger reaction in a stressful situation. You either want to beat somebody up or you want to run away. That's fight or flight. That's mediated in the deep part of your brain in the amygdala. I don't know if you had anybody talking about that before. Amygdala, amygdala, amideates the stress response. Okay. To take yourself out of the stress response,

what we did was we tensed and relaxed, released the physical energy. Second breath, I forced you, I told you to think about the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. Third breath, I had you smell the most beautiful thing you ever smelled. Both of those things are mediated in the cortex of your brain, the outer part of your brain. When we fire, we force our brain to fire there, it disinhibits the migdala. Oh, I see. Wow. You forced your brain to be positive. You forced your brain to release the negative thought.

Would that be a good practice to do before a really nerve-wracking stressful situation? Like, let's say, speaking in front of a bunch of people? Yeah, would that be a good, absolutely. I have, so that's, so the thing is, if you try and it will 100% will work for you if you can, if you can do it, the thing is, if you're already stressed in a situation and you're like, oh God, it's coming up, you have that, you're releasing cortisol and epinephrine, epinephrine in your body. So that'll take about 10, 10, 12, 15 minutes for it

to kind of that digiter part, but you won't have the mental anxiety. You won't have, you'll start to put a different chemical profile into your body. You still have the other ones flowing. The liver will take care of it in two cycles. Well, there's always how you perceive also. There's that barrier as well because excited and anxious

are almost the same physiologic class. Yeah, it's almost the same. Like if I get super excited about something like when you were young and you first fell in love, you're getting epinephrine, nor epinephrine, you're getting cortisol, you're getting the jitters, but you don't perceive it as, you know, all fun nerve wrapping. Yeah, you're like, oh my god, I'm in love. I'm in about to see this girl again.

So I think if you change the way you perceive it, that changes everything. Well, it's interesting too, because I went through, if you heard of Wim Hof and like, he doesn't have it. Okay. So we actually held a course here. Wow. And it was really impactful for me just because my go-to was always to tense up until like, overcome stress by tensing.

And just to learn to hyper-oxygenate and, you know, really relax and give way of that control mechanism, like to then apply that into immersing myself into freezing cold water was just like, it was an epiphany for me, just because, you know, when you go to get into like something like an ice bucket of water, your first thing is, oh my God, I gotta like, bear down. And, you know, whether the storm in a sense,

but when I figured out that relax, I could bear it like almost immediately, I could stay in this like an hour, it felt like. Yeah. Yeah. That's powerful, man. That's super cool. Yeah.

But I mean, this is way more applicable. So I think that this is something like, your everyday person can do. Like, you don't always have a ice tub available. Yeah. That sounds pretty painful too. I'm from Buffalo, so I grew up like that, so that's cool. That's just going outside.

Yeah, it's going outside, that's all you're doing. So yeah, no, I mean, so those are the three, I think, super impactful things that people can do like right now to do. And if you notice, they're all evidence-based, they're all easy. We can go and access like right now, if you're listening, all evidence-based, they're all easy. We can go and access like right now, if you're listening, you can access this right now,

you can take this stuff, you can do it. And guess what, it's free. It's free. Do you think that this is the big missing piece of Western medicine? This is the big part that they're just not seeing right now and that if they incorporate this, we'd see each other a lot better.

Yeah, I mean, I mean it's actually, you know, if this is the piece is, yeah, it's understanding where disease comes from. It's within the word. It's a ease, you know, if you can find that place of, you know, you know, the thing is though, also you are, you know, the Paramahansa Yogananda, the guru that I follow, he says, you know, you change yourself, you change thousands. You know, so the thing is though, if you're a doctor, you're not practicing these things yourself. It's very hard to advocate for something that you don't do.

It's like somebody who doesn't train and they're telling you to do something automatically. You have no legitimacy for you. There's also not a lot of money in it either. Yeah, these are practices that don't require a pill, don't require a shot, don't require a therapy. It's just do them. There's not a lot of money in that, which makes me wonder, even as more research and more stuff points us in the direction of how important this is, will we go that direction? It's, you know, and the thing is, it's like, you know,

I always say, you know, there's $7 trillion of research in the West, just 7,000 years of experience in the East. You gotta be in the middle. But that's why you cannot rely on the either paradigm. You have to rely on you. You know what though, the irony is this, like even in personal training, it was like,

oh, if you get your clients to really be able to take care of themselves and get themselves in shape, then you're gonna lose clients because they're not gonna need you anymore. The irony is the opposite. When you do this, you are more successful as a trainer. And I bet you, you probably, your books are probably filled as a cancer specialist.

I bet you have a waiting list compared to other doctors because of how you work with people. Like the patients really like to talk. Yeah, they like to, you know, obviously the reason they're there isn't a great reason, but people always say, oh, I love to have you as my doctor. I'm like, you don't want me as your doctor.

You don't want me in that way, you know? But yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, it's like any field is like that, I think, but that's why I wanted to write this book and kind of build this healing platform because it's like, it's like any field is like that, I think. But that's why I wanted to write this book and kind of build this healing platform because it's like, look, you can do this. You need somebody, you guys have, if they're interested in your work,

they come to you and you coach them, but you know that in the end, if they don't take ownership of the situation, they're not gonna get the gains. Right. That's right. That's right. Well, you're in a unique position because of your training in Western medicine, you are a doctor. And so I think that affords you the ability

to be able to communicate things and have a huge impact. Because I know lots of people that if you were to tell them to meditate and have gratitude, you know, they'd be like, ah, it doesn't work. But now it's a doctor telling me, maybe I'll consider it. So. Are you seeing more and more of your peers,

though, get on board with this thought process? Because I feel like what we were talking about with Western medicine has definitely been predominant for the past 20, 30 years, this way of thinking of, you know, we just focus on one system. But are you starting to see more and more doctors be a little more open to like? Yeah, you know, we just focus on one system, but are you starting to see more and more doctors be a little more open to like? Yeah, you know, it's not a lot of them,

but like I have a few that are really, really, like one, I started talking a couple of years ago and every note now at the end, he goes talk to the patient about meditation, nutrition, and exercise, he puts it in his note, so it's going out to other doctors. I'm like, you put that in your nose, he's like, well, yeah, yeah.

And then he went on a meditation retreat, five days last week. I covered him and he was like, I'm like, where are you going? You go on vacation, he's like, I'm going to a meditation retreat. I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, yeah. I had my wife listen to your book. I had my kids listen to your book.

I'm doing this meditation retreat. I'm not taking my wife, because you know that's stressful. I'm like, okay. Smart man. But yeah, you know, so I think it's coming and it's just, you know, you got to really do it yourself though. I mean, you can't, I can't lay. Now you guys subject to, you know, being punished or getting in trouble for that, can you say, can you do by him putting notes on there to meditate? No, it's all, you're fine. You know, it's just not common. That's all. It's not common, but it's also evidence-based. I'm not saying, nothing I said in this the whole

time, I did I make up. Right. It's coming from somewhere, you know? And yes, the research is there, but also these are kind of like, I don't want to get super spiritual, but these are truths. These are things that are true. So it's kind of like, of course, the research is going to support it. Well, and this is all conjunction with pharmaceuticals, and other strategies that you are using. Exactly, exactly.

And that's one of the things, I do this worksheet I have with people coming in that want to work with me. I haven't filled out like this, houses of health worksheet. And in the physical house, you know, there's diet, there's exercise, there's sleep, and then there's, have you seen a doctor?

Because there's a lot of things you can't figure out on your own, your health. You go in and your cholesterol is like triple normal, you know, you need to know that. You may not know by just working out or, you know, change your, you may have something that's genetic. You may have, so Western medicine is not wrong. It's not a fallacy.

The $7 trillion of research, it's real. So yeah, I mean, people are like, oh, you don't need Western medicine. I'm like, well, did you know that the survival has gone up from average of 50 years to 78 years? Or I think America now, I think is 81 years average. And the average of 50 years to 78 years, or I think America now, I think, is 81 years average, and the average from 50 years ago was like 53. Yeah, you don't need Western medicine, but this is why we've gone from 50,

because you're not dying of heart attacks, you're not dying of acute things as much anymore. So we can start to focus on what just said at the beginning of the program, of chronic disease, you know. And this is where we're on the leading edge of that right now with even what you guys are doing too with the mind work and we're on the edge. That's why you know, they say, you know, first you break the windows, then you are the windows. You know, so when you're on the leading edge, you're gonna get pushed back because people aren't gonna be open to it because they're just setting their own way of thinking. It's like that guy who said it was a religion talk. We just need to find the right wording to access it

so that people can hear it the right way. That's all. Well, this is promising. I'm glad to hear that you're doing this and that some people are doing this in your space and hopefully more do along the way. So I appreciate you coming on the show. Sure, man.

Thank you very much. Good time. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,

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